The present invention relates to harvesting, and more particularly to an apparatus for merging a pair of windows into a single windrow for subsequent processing by a forage harvester, square baler or the like.
Recently, high capacity forage harvesters have been developed which, in order to harvest at top capacity so as to improve harvesting efficiency, requires an increase in ground speed. This extra speed creates wear and tear on the tractor, harvester, forage box, running gear and the operator. Thus, it would be desirable to provide an apparatus which would allow top capacity harvesting by combining two windows into one during harvesting while at the same time allowing reduced ground speed.
Although raking attachments have been utilized in the past to combine two windrows, raking has several disadvantages. First, raking requires a separate pass around a field in a tractor prior to harvesting and therefore requires more energy and more time. Secondly, raking typically knocks off leaves of crops such as alfalfa thus reducing the nutritional value of the crop. Finally, raking is undesirable since raking attachments not only pickup the windrow but also pickup stones and rocks and mixes them with the windrow with the result that damage occurs to harvester knives.
Various other apparatus are known for moving, turning and fluffing one windrow or creating one windrow from cut material. The following United States patents show examples of such apparatus:
______________________________________ Patent No. Inventor Issue Date ______________________________________ 1,166,136 Leasure Dec. 28, 1915 2,168,266 McElwain Aug. 1, 1939 2,502,599 Smart April 4, 1950 2,529,422 Sampson Nov. 7, 1950 2,529,577 Schempp et al Nov. 14, 1950 2,609,651 Cymara Sept. 9, 1952 2,667,731 Nerness Feb. 2, 1954 2,679,720 Cymara June 1, 1954 2,695,487 Glienke Nov. 30, 1954 2,727,350 Kuhlman Dec. 20, 1955 2,735,533 Collins et al Feb. 21, 1956 2,741,892 Collette April 17, 1956 2,761,270 Blaser et al Sept. 4, 1956 ______________________________________